I went to see my Israeli friend tonight whose cousin was killed on October 7. We talked about all the things Jews talk about: terrorism, trauma, work drama, shrooms, etc. And I was talking about Jewish endurance. I said: “you know, we’re not supposed to be here.” Wait, what do you mean, she said. “You know, we outlived everyone. The Jews. We shouldn’t really be here – but we are.” To which she reminded me, with tears in her eyes, that we’re chosen to teach the world something.
Huh. I asked what that something is, myself believing it to be morality, justice, the truth. She didn’t mention any of those things. She said that the Jews survive and overcome immense pain and devastation to teach the world how to love – really love. Love through pain, through hardship, through terror and trauma and fear and distress. “Effortless love” she said. We find love even when it should be the last thing anyone who has been through these things should be able to find.
She’s right. The Jews always somehow find new depths in our hearts.
It reminded me of a poem I came across recently. It’s called ‘To An Antisemite’.
No storm can drive me off the field ––
Nor frost, nor hail;
The sun, perhaps, will make me yield,
But not the gale.Agains the wrong and wrath of men
With soul I’m girt;
I learned to face a lion’s den
And stay unhurt.You cannot chase me off the ground,
For you I fight;
Till you, the slaver, are unbound.
The wronger – right.In vain you try to quell the light,
And dim the day,
I cannot leave you in the night
And run away.I live in spite of foe-made laws,
In spite of fate.
And if I love, it is because––
Because you hate…
The world hates Jews. And in return this is what we Jews give the world:
This morning I woke up and saw an antisemite, and I saw hate disguised as something else. I saw a person I once loved and cherished as a sister, who herself often recognized the huge size of my heart – my effortless love – and she was standing on a freeway in LA, participating in a ceasefire protest with an antisemitic organization, holding a carboard sign that said “Free Free Palestine”. It was on the news. She was in a scrum in which 75 of her fellow people were arrested.
As I saw this, I remembered my final phone call with her, around the May 2021 conflict. I remembered she agreed to talk to me, to hear my justifications for daring to be a proud Jew. I remembered we spoke on the phone, and she called me while driving to do groceries, not understanding or honoring the fact that this was a seriously important phone call. She was driving. Driving. And I was defending my existence.
“But I had a Jewish professor who was a ‘Zionist’ and he said that’s colonialist and genocidal,” she said. And I wondered, well who do you have more loyalty to; your dearest friend, or your former college professor whose faculty is being funded by Russian oligarchs and Qatar? I threw up after that phone call. I remember feeling so unwell. How could a comfort suddenly become a threat; a lighthouse suddenly become a danger. This morning, I got that familar feeling of nausea as I saw this person and this awful story, but that feeling was accompanied by the kind of relief that only an absolute and certain kind of closure provides. Case closed. The answer was there all along. And you know what? I kind of always knew it.
There was a moment there a while ago, in my early thirties when I could have felt pressurized into becoming an antizionist Jew for the sake of remaining passable to my new LGBTQ+ family. The people I poured myself into were vehemently fascist about the way I expressed my Judaism. But I didn’t succumb to them. I chose myself. Which I always do in the end, because a person must survive. I told them to go fuck themselves. I’m not saying it was easy. In fact, it was incredibly hard. But thank god I did. When I saw her today, I thought: I've been waiting for this moment for years.
Antisemites are idiots. We offer them so much – effortless love – and all they have for us is hate. That kind of self-destructive trait destroys a person’s life, but not only that, it is responsible for destroying entire societies. So, you know, good luck to them. Because, for instance, the Hamas plot that was foiled today – the one that was going to kill Jews in Europe – wasn’t just going to kill Jews now, was it?
One day, the antisemites will look around and wonder where their former Jewish friends went with all that we were offering despite the trials and tribulations of the world. But our warmth will have long faded because we’ll have left them behind.
Eve
Shabbat Shalom from Australia
The world does not hate Jews.
But the arrogant, the inconsiderate, the uneducated and those who have never been to Israel may do.
But they are not the majority, believe me
This 70+ old goy knows stuff. You are not alone
We have your back
And we are absolutely ready to be counted!
Just after 9/11, I took a bicycle trip through Portugal and parts of Spain. No one else signed up for the trip but the company didn't cancel it (thankfully) and, instead sent one guide with my Ex-wife and I. Our guide was then in his 30s and had very mixed political views and was admittedly very ignorant of Israel-Palestinian history. We were in the middle of the 2d Intifada and, as indicated, just post 9/11. We had great discussions and educated each other over great espressos, food and wine. The memory of those discussions that I most took away, however, was Jorge telling me that the biggest mistake in Portugal's history was kicking out its Jews in the 15th century. Despite everything, we are a light among the nations and have improved every society that has allowed us some breathing space and the opportunity to thrive. Why they turn on us is one of the greatest mysteries in my mind. Israel, as a country, just like the individual Jew, is a light among the nations. They have done nothing but improve (or repair) the world. And yet, they are still treated as the Jew among the nations. How sad.